Literacy in America: Historic Journey and Contemporary Solutions
by Edward E. Gordon and Elaine H. Gordon. Foreword by Gerald Gutek.
Publisher: Praeger/Greenwood
This book is the first comprehensive history of how the American people achieved varying degrees of literacy from early colonial times to the modern era. The authors demonstrate that literacy education is not synonymous with schooling. By focusing on people rather than statistics, including literacy among women and minority groups, they explore the literacy agents, methods, and materials used at different times and places throughout the history of the country.
Reviews:
Edward and Elaine Gordon are back with a highly readable monograph/textbook hybrid...[H]ow the Gordons illuminate specifics, and how they compare and contrast places and trends, gives their text an edge in reader–friendliness without sacrificing scholarly rigor. The index and standard bibliography are both thorough... The Gordons really know how to tell stories. Readers will appreciate how they reconstruct the lives of teachers over two centuries, largely in settings outside formal schooling. Scholars and students of the roles of women in the history of education will find a wonderful archive of material.... In their areas of emphasis, and in the book's readability, scholarship, and ease of use as a reference tool, the Gordons succeeded admirably."
–History of Education Quarterly
"A major contribution to the history of literacy with appeal well beyond the scholarly audience. Every teacher of literacy would be enriched by reading it. A strength of the book is its careful attention to regional differences. Throughout, the authors detail how literacy experiences were mediated by geography, religion, race and ethnicity, social class and gender.... The book is rich in gripping anecdotes."
–Journal of American History
"This well–researched history of literacy in the US extends from Colonial New England to the 21st century.... Scholarly historical treatment of a critically important and contemporary topic. Highly recommended. All levels."
–Choice
"The strength of the book is in its variety of first person sources..... These stories and others of approaches to literacy education add color and credibility to more standard histories of education in the United States."
–American Historical Review
"Literacy in America provides a well–documented account of the variety of ways people learned to read and write throughout America's history.... By emphasizing the particular experiences of readers and teachers over more comprehensive discussions of literacy levels, the Gordons stress the various 'journeys' to literacy traversed in different periods of American history and the ways in which these were reinforced by the support of family, religious groups, and the workplace, as well as in the schoolroom. The models they find in the historical patterns of individualized instruction and the responsibility for literacy education shared by many social groups offer intriguing models for addressing the pressing need for more sophisticated and widespread literacy in today's population."
–Anthropology & Education Quarterly
"An extensive, meticulously researched, and superbly organized and presented historical survey of literacy in America.... No definite Education History or American History reference collection can be considered complete without the inclusion of Literacy in America."
–Midwest Book Review
Available from: Greenwood Publishing Group · 800.225.5800
www.greenwood.com
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Centuries of Tutoring: A History of Alternative Education in American and Europe
by Edward E. Gordon and Elaine H. Gordon. Foreword by Gerald Gutek.
Publisher: University Press of America
The book examines both the development of tutoring as a form of education and its influences on "schooling," early childhood education and women's issues. It offers a review of what past educators wrote on their work, the lives of their students, and the wider socio–cultural ramifications during centuries of tutoring. The role of the tutor and the tutor–governess is reviewed in education at home as well as the corollary use of tutors in the school. The nineteenth century in Europe and America witnessed the widespread use of tutors and the gradual adoption of mandatory tax–supported public schooling. The study concludes with a review of the contemporary uses of tutoring and an analysis of its historical contributions to Western education.
Reviews:
"... a book not likely to duplicate any others on one's shelf, and one that suggests a variety of productive applications in research and teaching."
–History of Education Quarterly
"... a fascinating good read, well–researched and documented, scholarly but hardly dry and never boring or tedious. Moreover, it is an essential and significant addition to feminist history and politics."
–Educational Studies
"Historians of education often observe that there are far more to the history of learning than the history of schooling, and it is to Gordon's credit that he has attempted to document this important point."
–The American Historical Review
"In an attempt to 'investigate tutoring's widespread applications throughout the history of childhood in the Western world,' the Gordons make excellent use of historical insight and primary sources to produce a very readable history and an interesting perspective on the development of schooling in general. The emphasis on the one–to–one nature of early education is enlightening, especially the account of how the act of tutoring others helped shape the educational philosophy of some of history's greatest thinkers.... Well–written text and superb reference material in the appendixes and source list."
–Choice
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Available from: Rowman & Littlefield Education · 800.462.6420
www.rowmaneducation.com
Featured in the Sunday New York Times!
The 2010 Meltdown:
Solving the Impending
Jobs Crisis.
Publisher: Praeger
To see part of an Ed Gordon interview on The 2010 Meltdown aired on CHTV, Ontario, Canada, click here.
The 2010 Meltdown issues a wake-up call to overcome the twin economic shocks of baby-boomer retirements and too few younger well-educated people. It details how these trends are creating a labor vacuum in a rising tide of high-skill, technology-related jobs.
- Offers companies outsourcing alternatives
- Spells out solutions to filling high-tech jobs
- Provides answers for finding tomorrow's high-wage careers
The 2010 Meltdown marshals vast amounts of data to illustrate the potentially disastrous consequences of these issues for economic competitiveness and individual opportunity.
The 2010 Meltdown reveals that while parents and students are obsessed with technology, millions of high-paying jobs in engineering, computing, and health care are going unfilled.
The 2010 Meltdown challenges Wall Street's cultural obsession with short-term returns that results in cost-cutting rather than long-term training and education.
The 2010 Meltdown details solutions in community development, training, and education from around the world as models for positive action.
Reviews:
"Gordon, business and education consultant, challenges policy makers to address the anticipated shortage of highly educated and technically trained workers.... He describes a cultural lag that has led to "techno-peasants" who drop out of high school, have outdated career skills, and seem destined for low-paying jobs, and a business environment that focuses too much on short-term profits, outsourcing, and importing temporary workers. To produce a more educated and technically skilled workforce, he recommends a cultural change in which parents are more involved in their children's education. He also discusses how community involvement in education can be enhanced with the development of NGOs that involve businesses in local community organizations such as chambers of commerce and service clubs to guide students to new careers... The 2010 Meltdown is especially useful for business professionals, policy makers, and educators. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections."
Choice, March 2006
"Read it and spread its call. The data is devastating; the problem clear. We simply aren't educating or training for today's world. Unless we wake up and begin to act now, our economy will inevitably slide and, over time, even our democratic system may be threatened. The solution? Ed Gordon tell us that it does not lie with government-national or local-alone, or business alone, or community action alone, or family alone. It requires what he sees as a change of culture: we must mobilize the energies of all of these elements to stop and reverse the meltdown. We can. But will we?"
Paul J. Miller
Senior Partner
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal
"The 2010 Meltdown strikes a much needed chord for a culture change in schools and the way we value young people. Schools must become responsive to the real world. There is time to accomplish change, but is there the political will?"
Joan M. Klaus
Chairman
Illinois College Access Network
Available from: Greenwood Publishing Group · 800.225.5800
www.greenwood.com
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Edward E. Gordon History Presentations
Imperial Consulting Corporation
220 East Walton Place, #8E · Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: 312.664.5196
For more information, contact us at imperialcorp@juno.com
